Sail vs Power

When I was in high school, I had a music teacher (band) who loved to go sailing. He didn't have a big fancy sail boat but a small modest one. In the summer he would teach beginning sailing as part of a local summer recreational program. On his office wall at school, he had a cartoon up on the wall. It showed a man kneeling in prayer by his sailboat. The caption read, "Forgive me, I tried a powerboat and I LIKED IT!


That is sort of the way that I feel abouting painting and playing with digital images on my computer. The computer makes it so easy to manipulate an image and produce so many variations on a theme. There are so many filters available that producing painterly effects are so simple.


I took a photograph of a bridge in Grand Rapids, MI, not far from where I live. Your typical bland older concrete bidge, crossing over the Grand River. Once I had the image in my computer I twisted the color and texture every way possible. I soon came out with a pretty good image. I showed it to another painter friend and asked him if he ever thought of playing with images digitally. His answer surprised me a bit. He sai, "Oh no, I'm afraid that I would like it too much. It's almost too easy to do and I would probably give up painting." I know the feeling.